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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson setting out plans for lockdown Boris Johnson speech: PM unveils 'conditional plan' to reopen society
(32 minutes later)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is setting out his plans for how the lockdown should continue. Boris Johnson has unveiled a "conditional plan" to reopen society, allowing people in England to spend more time outdoors from Wednesday.
It comes after he unveiled an alert system to rank the threat level of coronavirus in England. The PM also said people who could not work from home should return to the workplace - but avoid public transport.
Details of the system, with a scale of one to five, are being unveiled as part of the PM's televised address. He said a new Covid Alert System with five levels would govern how quickly lockdown restrictions could be eased.
The UK government is also replacing the "stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" slogan with "stay alert, control the virus, save lives". He hoped the next step "at the earliest by 1 June" would be for some primary pupils to return to school in England.
The "stay at home" advice will remain in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland after leaders in the three devolved nations said Mr Johnson had not consulted them on the new message. In an address to the nation, Mr Johnson said this stage would also involve reopening shops - but he cautioned this would only happen if the science supported it.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the only change being made to lockdown in Scotland was that people would be allowed to exercise more than once a day, from Monday. The next step could see some hospitality businesses and other public places reopen - "if the numbers support it" - but not earlier than 1 July.
He said these steps formed part of a "first sketch of a roadmap for reopening society".
The PM added: "This is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week.
"Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures."
Clarifying the conditions in which schools and shops would reopen, Mr Johnson said: "Throughout this period of the next two months we will be driven not by mere hope or economic necessity.
"We are going to be driven by the science, the data and public health.
"And I must stress again all of this is conditional, it all depends on a series of big ifs."
He said those who could not work from home would now be encouraged to return to work - but they should avoid using public transport to get there if possible.
Mr Johnson mentioned construction and manufacturing as examples of the sorts of industries where restarting would now be explicitly encouraged.
Workplaces would receive guidance on how to become "Covid secure", Mr Johnson added.
The PM also said he was "serving notice" that it would soon be the time to impose a quarantine on people coming into the country by air.
'Trying to pull off the impossible'
The prime minister is effectively trying to pull off the impossible.
He wants to try to restart normal life, while keeping the virus at bay with limited means to do so.
With no vaccine, the government is reliant on containing any local outbreaks.
But the problem is that even with the extra testing that has been put in place over the past month, there are big holes in the UK's ability to suppress the virus.
It takes too long to get test results back - several days in some cases - and those most in need of regular testing, such as care home staff for example, are still reporting they cannot always access tests.
Our ability to trace the close contacts of infected people remains unknown - the piloting of the system, which involves the use of an app and army of contact tracers, has just started on the Isle of Wight.
It means we are effectively fighting this "invisible killer" with one hand behind our back.
We are not alone in struggling, similar problems are being encountered by other countries.
But we are still some way behind the best prepared and equipped, such as Germany and South Korea.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Johnson's speech lacked "clarity and consensus" and raised "as many questions as it answers".
He told BBC News that millions of people who cannot work from home were effectively being told to go to work with just 12 hours' notice - and not to use public transport.
"That's why I say the statement raises as many questions as it answers," he said.
Mr Johnson's speech came hours after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she felt ending the previous "stay at home" message was the wrong choice for Scotland.
The PM earlier unveiled the new message of "stay alert, control the virus, save lives" in England - but Ms Sturgeon said it would not apply in Scotland at the moment.
Wales' health minister Vaughan Gething also said there had not been a "four-nations agreement" on the new message and that the advice to "stay at home" in Wales was unchanged.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have powers over their own lockdown restrictions, with England's measures set by the government at Westminster and leaders have expressed a wish to move forward as one - though they may do so at different speeds.
Mr Johnson said in his speech he had consulted "across the political spectrum, across all four nations of the UK" and that his plan was a "a general consensus on what we could do".
A further 269 people have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of deaths recorded to 31,855.A further 269 people have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of deaths recorded to 31,855.
The number of deaths recorded tends to be lower over the weekend because of reporting delays.The number of deaths recorded tends to be lower over the weekend because of reporting delays.
The threat level system to be introduced will apply to England only but the government is working with the devolved administrations as they develop their own. The government has also missed its target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day for the eighth day in a row, with 92,837 tests on Saturday.
It is understood the system - with alerts ranging from green (level one) to red (level five) - will be adjusted according to data and will be similar to the one used to keep the public informed about the terror threat level.
In his address, Mr Johnson is expected to say England is currently at stage four but moving towards stage three.
The alert tool - to be administered by a new "joint biosecurity centre" - will reflect the virus threat in different parts of the country, meaning the threat level in one city could differ quite widely from another.
This could inform the local alteration of restrictions in England.
In his broadcast, Mr Johnson is not expected to provide exact dates for when the strict curbs on daily life - which have been in place for seven weeks - might change.
The prime minister tweeted a graphic setting out new guidance for England with the message: "Everyone has a role to play in helping to control the virus by staying alert and following the rules."
Earlier Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick defended the new slogan - saying now was the right moment to "update and broaden" the message.
He said his "strong preference" was for the devolved nations "to move as one".
However, the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have said they are sticking with the "stay at home" message, diverging from England.
Nicola Sturgeon said the message was "vague and imprecise".
"I don't know what 'stay alert' means," the first minister told the daily briefing in Edinburgh.
She added it would be "catastrophic" for Scotland to drop the "stay at home" message at this "critical" moment.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the government must clarify what "stay alert" meant.
Part of Mr Johnson's pre-recorded statement was filmed on Saturday while the rest was being done on Sunday, a Downing Street source told BBC political correspondent Ben Wright.
The source said no significance should be attached to the timing and that it was normal for a statement to be recorded in this way.
Lockdown 'problems'
On Saturday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned the government would proceed with "extreme caution" when lifting lockdown measures.
But Prof Mark Woolhouse, who is on the Scottish government's Covid-19 taskforce, said "something has got to change both in our approach to controlling the virus but also in the messaging that goes with that".
He told Radio 4's The World This Weekend that various measures could be taken with "very little impact" on the disease's ability to spread.
He said so long as people who need to self-isolate stay at home, outdoor activities "pose relatively low risk" of transmission - but only if people maintain social distancing.
"We can't stay at home forever… we've got to start having a grown-up discussion about balancing the harms [of the lockdown]," Prof Woolhouse added.
In other developments:In other developments:
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